1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus having a variable data printing function, a control method of an image forming apparatus, and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, image forming apparatuses are generally provided with a function to merge a print job stored in a raster image processor (RIP) based on the unit of a job or a page. This function is used as means for simply gathering, as one job, print jobs created by different application software, or for quickly performing processing for simply inserting a page without returning to the application software.
Recently, a demand of variable data printing (VDP) has been increased to print data matching individual needs of clients. In the variable data printing, registered client data is printed for one job based on the unit of a record. The record is a unit of a series of VDP processing. In the case of printing based on the unit of a client, one record contains print data corresponding to one client.
In the variable data printing, one job can include a large number of records. For example, one job can include several to tens of thousands of records. In the variable data printing, a variable object for varying content thereof depending on the record is associated with the job, is combined to a master object as a common background of the record, and is printed. If the job in the VDP includes a plurality of records, the records are managed based on the unit of a job, and the job is referred to as a VDP job.
An object used plural times in the VDP job is referred to as a reusable object. The reusable object stores intermediate data or a bit map image that is rasterized as an image once, and is reused at the using time after the second time, so that the speed of processing time can be increased. The above mentioned master object is used as the reusable object as an example.
As the VDP is widely used, performing specific processing is considered in the case of the print job as the VDP job.
According to conventional art discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-215819, when a document file is imported, in the case of variable output data, a segment is temporarily set based on the unit of a record, and electronic document data with the set segment based on the record is generated.
The conventional art discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-215819, is subjected to the processing when importing the document file and only to set subsequent editing processing to be performed based on the unit of the record. In merging of the print jobs based on the unit of the job or page that has been widely executed before the variable data printing, processing suitable to the print job for the variable data printing is not performed.
For example, a using case is considered to create a direct mail personalized every client as a variable data print job, store the mail to the RIP, and add news of two pages of a new store. In the conventional merging of the print jobs, all of the variable data print jobs are printed and only an additional print job corresponding to the two pages is then printed. However, in this case, it is expected that the additional jobs corresponding to the two pages are printed to the ends of all records based on the unit of the client.
Assuming another example that a direct mail personalized every client is created as the variable data print job, and is stored to the RIP. Then, a page of March as the corresponding month is inserted from information about limited-time sales with one page every month from January to December.
In that case, the merging is performed based on the unit of a page, and in a state of displaying thumbnail images of both print jobs, a fourth page of a job of the information about the time-limited sales is inserted back to a first page of a first record of the variable data print job of the direct mail with drag and drop. On the other hand, with the conventional merging based on the unit of the page, the page is simply inserted back to the first page of the first record, but is not inserted to another record. However, in this case, it is expected that a page of April is inserted back to the first pages of all records.
Although the variable data print job has been gradually used in recent years, the variable data print job has an issue that the conventional merging processing based on the unit of the job or page may not be successfully performed as expected.